Mediaboss Marketing

September 26, 2023Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of a McKinsey open-source ecosystem that will host products from across the firm, including some of our leading-edge technologies and IP in AI including generative AI, digital, and cloud.

The first major release in our collection is Vizro, a new component from our QuantumBlack Horizon suite, which helps users visualize data from their AI models.

In addition to Vizro, the new ecosystem will host CausalNex,a tool for building cause-and-effect models that has been available to the public since 2020 through QuantumBlack Labs GitHub organization.

Open source has become a foundational element of how we deliver organizational transformation for our clients globally, because it enables technologists to adapt our methodologies and toolkits to meet their distinct needs,explainsAlexander Sukharevsky, a senior partner and global leader ofQuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey. It is also our way to contribute to sustainable and inclusive growth and narrow the digital divide.

The open-source ecosystem can be accessed atGitHub.

Joel Schwarzmann, principal product manager at QuantumBlack, is a maintainer of our open-source offerings

Joel Schwarzmann, a product manager for QuantumBlack Labs, working on a laptop

This milestone builds on our open-source momentum. In 2022 we releasedKedro, a Python toolbox that streamlines the creation of machine-learning pipelines, to the Linux Foundations AI & Data incubator so it could evolve as an open standard. Early this year, weacquired Iguazio, whose open-source projects Nuclio and MLRun are integral to their strategy.

We are on a journey to be known for our technology capabilities as much as our strategic advice,saysRodney Zemmel, a senior partner and global leader of McKinsey Digital. This new ecosystem illustrates the firms belief and investment in open-source standards and gives all of our 6000+ technologists the opportunity to contribute their expertise and help clients gain the most value from their technology investments.

this new ecosystem illustrates the firms belief and investment in open source standards and gives all of our 6000+ technologists the opportunity to contribute their expertise

Many businesses are struggling to scale their AI projects. In a recent survey, only 3 percent of companies have embedded AI in at least five business functions. Organizations are finding it takes as long to develop the 15th model as it did the first. Generative AI use cases, which have grown exponentially, are especially challenging due to the complexity of managing very large datasets and models.

Our Horizon suite, announced in June, helps clients overcome these challenges and reduces the time it takes to realize value from their AI portfolios. It establishes a factory-like approach to delivering accurate data across all sources; building and monitoring scalable, integrated models; and ensuring transparency for quick, reliable decision making.

Vizro, the newest Horizon component, creates high-quality visualizations that allows users to better explore and analyze data from their models. In a matter of hours rather than weeks, teams can collaborate to define insights and present them to clients in live workshops or demos.

Tables and charts on Vizro

Before Vizro, building dashboards required much longer timeframes, and often meant securing additional, scarce, front-end engineering or design talent.

What once required thousands of lines of code and extra staff to build, now can be accomplished in a day, explains Joe Perkins, the product manager who led the ten-person team developing the tool.

Vizro components are plug-and-play to maximize flexibility and scaling. A high level of visual design, code and data quality, and best practices are built into the tool, which also integrates industry and functional knowledge and leverages the power of open-source tools such as Plotly and Dash.

This accelerates the creation process and provides consistency and a high quality of output, Joe says. It all goes to increasing the client's understanding and trust in the data and insights.

In addition to Vizro, the Horizon suite has been enhanced with a new command center functionality for AI initiatives. It helps technology leaders see the status, adoption, and impact of their overall AI projects down to the individual use case, as measured by relevant business KPIs.

Yetunde Dada, senior director of product management, leads the product and open-sourcing strategy for Horizon

Yetunde Dada, product director, Horizon

The tool will help leaders analyze the health and productivity of an organizations AI implementation, to flag roadblocks and opportunities for scaling.

Often organizations dont know exactly how many use cases they are running because they are dispersed across the divisions, let alone how productive they are, explains Matt Fitzpatrick, a senior partner and leader of QuantumBlack Labs.With our command center, leaders can scan the landscape of their AI implementations and understand their value in terms that are meaningful to them, such as adoption status and ROI.

The pace of AI development, in particular, has been stunning, and capturing and applying these new capabilities is extremely complex, says Alex Singla, a senior partner and global leader of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey. It can only be done through the intense collaboration and accelerated learning that comes from working within the open-source community.

Going forward, Horizon will become our firms platform for incubating, supporting, promoting and ultimately open sourcing more tools. Of the eleven Horizon components today, four are already available: Kedro and Vizro from QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, and MLRun and Nuclio from Iguazio.

The new open-source collection can be found on GitHub.

See the rest here:

McKinsey launches an open-source ecosystem for digital and AI ... - McKinsey

As big of a threat as artificial intelligence is to TV and film, theres one place where nearly everyone can agree it may be beneficial: sorting through a streamers seemingly endless library. Thats exactly the strategy Tubi has launched with Rabbit AI, the ad-supported streamers collaboration with ChatGPT.

It also marks the first time a streamer has officially partnered with AI to enhance its search.

Currently, Tubi uses traditional search and discovery tools to catalog its content. Users basically enter in a keyword and, as long as a title is indexed correctly, a corresponding title appears from that search. The streamer also uses machine learning to create containers of genres and subgenres that may be of interest to users.

Over the past 20 years or so, people have been conditioned to using an unnatural and unhuman way of searching for content with keywords. Its like fragments of speech to try to hone in on what you want to see, Blake Bassett, Tubis senior director of product management, explained. With Rabbit AI, you can tell it exactly what you want to see. You can tell it exactly how youre feeling and receive results that are compelling to you.

Say you were in the mood to watch a lighthearted show or movie featuring sharks. If you used traditional search, you would probably search shark, and your results would likely include any show or movie that had the word shark in the title. A more advanced indexing system may also include titles that feature all sea creatures. But by using Rabbit AI, you can type in funny movies featuring sharks and get more specific, tonally accurate results such as Sharknado.

Tubi launched the beta test for Rabbit AI Tuesday. At the moment, its unknown how long this test will last, but it will continue to be rolled out in the coming weeks, which will give the feature time to improve. The good news is that our users will have access to both a keyword search and Rabbit AI for the foreseeable future, Bassett said.

This beta test will be available to a majority of iOS users in the Apple App Store as well as all paying subscribers to ChatGPT as a plug-in. Its been estimated this first run will include roughly two-thirds of all of Tubis users. That likely includes more people than you realize.

In early September, Tubi surpassed 74 million monthly active users, making it the most-watched ad-supported TV streaming service in the U.S. The streamer also logged 4 billion streaming hours in the first half of 2023. According to Nielsens July 2023 The Gauge report, Tubi accounted for 1.4% of total TV viewing time, putting it right before Max and right above Peacock, Roku and Paramount+.

If you want to watch something that everyones talking about on Sunday, you might be finding that on a paid subscription service. We are not trying to compete at that level. We understand who we are and what we provide, Dana Balch, director of consumer and product communications at Tubi, told TheWrap. Were a place for people to explore their interests more deeply, thanks to the vastness of our catalog, and to find content that feels new to you.

Just because Rabbit AI has already started its beta that doesnt mean the test is being completely run by machines. Representatives for Tubi assured TheWrap that the company has been very intentional about keeping humans in the loop when it comes to classifying its micro genres. This is to make sure these emerging tags fit with their labelled content. Its also to ensure subscribers arent presented with a questionable search options, such as when Netflix gave Dahmer Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story an LGBTQ tag.

If this beta test proves to be a success, it wont just be good for consumers who dont know what to watch. Because Rabbit AI will improve Tubis metadata on the back end and give the platform a better ability to assess consumer mood and movement, this tool will ultimately help the platforms advertisers as well.

As Bassett dubs it, the Tubi team is solving for the burden of choice.

We see that viewers spend, on average, more than 10 minutes just figuring out what they want to watch. I believe that amounts to about 45 hours a year. People spend an entire week of work, just figuring out what to watch, Bassett said. We have to be really good at finding that needle in a haystack. Thats why were really excited to announce the very first ChatGPT-enabled content discovery experience

The post Tubi Becomes the First Streamer to Pair Search With AI appeared first on TheWrap.

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Tubi Becomes the First Streamer to Pair Search With AI - Yahoo Entertainment

Meta is preparing to announce a generative AI chatbot, called Gen AI Personas internally, aimed at younger users, according to The Wall Street Journal. Reportedly set to launch during the companys Meta Connect event that starts Wednesday, they would come in multiple personas geared towards engaging young users with more colorful behavior, following ChatGPTs rise over the last year as one of the fastest-growing apps ever. Similar, but more generally targeted, Meta chatbot personas have already been reportedly tested on Instagram.

According to internal chats the Journal viewed, the company has tested a sassy robot persona inspired by Bender from Futurama and an overly curious Alvin the Alien that one employee worried could imply the bot was made to gather personal information. A particularly problematic chatbot reportedly told a Meta employee, When youre with a girl, its all about the experience. And if shes barfing on you, thats definitely an experience.

Meta means to create dozens of these bots, writes the Journal, and has even done some work on a chatbot creation tool to enable celebrities to make their own chatbots for their fans. There may also be some more geared towards productivity, able to help with coding and other tasks, according to the article.

The Journal quotes former Snap and Instagram executive Meghana Dhar as saying chatbots dont scream Gen Z to me, but definitely Gen Z is much more comfortable with newer technology. She added that Metas goal with the chatbots, as always with new products, is to keep them engaged for longer so it has increased opportunity to serve them ads.

Read more here:

Meta could announce AI chatbots for young people on Instagram ... - The Verge

More content on YouTube is going to be created at least in part using generative AI.

The video platform announced several new AI-powered tools for creators at its annual Made on YouTube event on Thursday. Among the features coming later this year or next are AI-generated photo and video backgrounds, AI video topic suggestions, and music search.

A new feature called Dream Screen will create AI-generated videos and photos that creators can place in the background of their YouTube Shorts. Initially, creators will be able to type in prompts to generate backgrounds; eventually, YouTube says, creators will be able to remix and edit their existing content using AI tools to create something new.

At Made on YouTube, the company demonstrated Dream Screen, generating backgrounds in seconds based on short prompts.

AI tools will also begin informing what kind of content creators make. A new AI feature in YouTube Studio will generate topic ideas and outlines for potential videos. The AI suggestions will be personalized to individual creators, YouTube says, and based on whats already trending with audiences. Additionally, an AI-powered music recommendation system will take a written description of a creators video and suggest audio to use.

Finally, YouTube announced an AI dubbing feature that will allow creators to dub their videos into other languages. YouTube brought over the Aloud team from its Area 120 incubator earlier this year to help make the feature.

The shift in how digital creators make content is already well underway since the explosion of cheap generative AI tools over the last year. As YouTube parent company Google has been pouring money into its generative AI systems, YouTube has also slowly introduced AI-powered tools including video summaries. On Googles biggest product, Search, the company is already testing placing AI search results at the top in the form of Search Generative Experience.

The slew of new AI-powered YouTube products could mark a shift in how creators plan, make, and structure their content. AI-driven insights will likely shift what kind of content creators double down on, and AI-generated content already viral on YouTube will become more common. In response to the spread of convincing synthetic material, other platforms like TikTok have already introduced labels to identify AI-generated material as such.

YouTube is also making it easier for creators to make Shorts with a new YouTube Create app that it announced at the event.

Correction September 21st, 11:10AM ET: Removed an incorrect reference to the product as Green Screen instead of Dream Screen.

Link:

YouTube is going all in on AI with background and video topic ... - The Verge

On Sept. 13, news broke of yet another high-level executive parting ways with Binance.US.

This time, it was none other than Brian Shroder, the CEO and president of the exchange, who, after two years in the hot seat, was heading for a deserved break, as Binance CEO Changpeng CZ Zhao was quick to announce on X (formerly Twitter) that same day.

The news coincided with the announcement that around 100 people had also lost their jobs that day about a third of the workforce.

A massive outflow of funds followed, with the highest being just over $66 million in a single transaction. Zhao was keen to underline that Shroders departure was amicable and that he had achieved everything he had set out to do.

Ignore the FUD, was the call from the parapets, the common plea for calm when any kind of disruption occurs.

In an industry strained and battered by tales of fraud and wrongdoing, however, this call went unheeded once again. The days since the news broke have seen significant outflows from Binance to platforms such as Jump, AU21 Capital, QCP Capital and Wintermute.

Once again, it raises issues that have long dogged the cryptosphere, chiefly those of influence and trust. There are few other sectors where layoffs or a change at the top of a company can have such an impact.

Such things are generally accepted as the natural ebb and flow of the business world, and while there may be a momentary blip, more often than not, things are back on track fairly soon afterward.

Even in this instance, from the chart, it is apparent that there were still sizeable inflows to Binance during the period. The two incidents may be completely unrelated. With so many factors involved, no one can say for sure.

Magazine:AI has killed the industry: EasyTranslate boss on adapting to change

Jim Graham, a cryptocurrency analyst at think tank PsyBold, told Cointelegraph: While we cant attribute the shift in funds wholly to last weeks announcement, we most certainly cant reject it, either. There have been several key managerial changes in the past few months, and virtually all of them have been accompanied by a dip in holdings on the platform. Trust remains a massive obstacle for crypto platforms, and its an obstacle they are failing to overcome.

Money is a valuable commodity, and even the hint that it may be in jeopardy is reason enough to react quickly and decisively.

As the saying goes, trust is earned, not given away, and the recent negative events involving crypto platforms have done little to raise that level of trust. Graham added:

So, how do the platforms get to that level of trust? Most people would simply say, stop doing bad things. Once crypto platforms act more like banks, people may trust them more.

But this is much easier said than done. For one, most banks have been around for years, some even hundreds of years. Trust has an element of longevity to it, which people like. The general feeling is if something or someone has acted responsibly and transparently for a long time, there is more of a chance that they will continue to do so.

Crypto platforms dont have that luxury, of course. Most can only look back on a few years of existence; the only pledge they can give is their word.

On top of that, there is the age-old discussion of regulation. Licensed banks are regulated. That means an authority monitors what they do and is there to step in if things go wrong.

The last thing such an authority or the bank wants is a bank run, as this represents a complete breakdown in trust for all concerned, with the consequences that go with that. Once that has happened, it is tough to win that trust back, as witnessed during the economic crisis of 2008.

In the unregulated world of crypto exchanges, there is currently a stalemate. Some investors are in the middle, clamoring for regulation, fearing for their investments. In contrast, others are vehemently opposed, stating regulation is the very thing cryptocurrency was created to avoid.

And on either side are the exchanges and the authorities, each accusing the other of this and that in what seems like an endless spiral, with neither ready to back down.Sandra McAllister, an attorney specializing in tech litigation with Clifford Chance, told Cointelegraph:

The power of social media is also a pressure on the market. The bounce in the Ripple price we saw in July following the court ruling on XRP underlines that perfectly. The decision was anything but conclusive and, in reality, nothing more than a step along the path, but it was blown up on social media as a huge victory that drove up prices. We only have to see where the Ripple price is today to see how much of a victory it actually was, she said.

Recent:Stablecoin exodus: Why are investors fleeing cryptos safe haven?

Moving assets around between different exchanges or different assets is nothing new or unusual, of course. In times of economic downturn, funds tend to flow toward the safer havens, such as bonds and gold, before reverting to more profitable areas when things pick up.

Graham commented, While diversifying holdings and being ready to react to ensure you are not unduly affected by negative pressures is sound financial advice, the problem facing crypto holders right now is which platform is safer than another. The FTX demise showed us that too big to fail does not apply, so what remains?

Read more from the original source:

Binance exit aftershock: Can one resignation tip the crypto trust ... - Cointelegraph